This is a guest post by Dilshad A. Ali. Returning home from any conference, there is a time of decompression and processing, as I am doing at my home in Virginia. I just wrapped up three intense days at the […]

I’ll be out of town this week, but hopefully will have a guest post or two to fill in the time. Until then, don’t forget to check out Talk Islam for ongoing discussion and links – it’s the best place […]

The following was a comment left by reader Gerald of Atlanta on my previous post. I am reproducing it in its entirety. UPDATE: I misidentified the reader as an Uyghur, actually he is descended from Chinese Hui muslims. I apologise […]

One of the frustrating things about Afghanistan is that it’s such a mess that our expectations for the democratic process were quite low. It seemed a given that Karzai would cruise to re-election unopposed, and while that may not be […]

The following is a press release issued by a group of muslim Americans regarding the oppression of the Uyghur in China. I am a signatory to the release and the forthcoming petition. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 23, 2009 Media contact: […]

At Read Islam, Conrad reviews A Million Bullets: The Story of the British in Afghanistan by James Fergusson. Here’s Conrad’s introduction: This is the first major account on the British operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to be written […]

This is an exclusive transcript of Pastor Rick Warren’s remarks at the 2009 Islamic Society of North America conference that concluded a few weeks ago, kindly provided to me by his staff and reprinted with their permission. I think it’s […]

This Wednesday, the majority of mankind is for quite a show – the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century. As the NASA graphic at right (click to enlarge) makes clear, the path of the eclipse traverses half the globe, […]

President Obama’s speech to the NAACP was equal parts encouragement and tough love. I found this passage to be refreshing, in that it broadens the reality of discrimination and thus implies common cause: “I understand there may be a temptation […]

Aziz Poonawalla

Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards.

The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the
Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same
name:

Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion;
And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust.
-- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass

IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod,
A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God,
Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall,
And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all!
-- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)